Since then there has been incredible grade inflation, especially considering that the number of undergraduates has trebled in size and — obviously — declined in average standard.

This inflation was driven by government via the educational administration system. It was impossible to resist with disadvantaging your own students.

Grade inflation has not just been a matter of grading, but of the actual courses studied. In the English system, with specialized undergraduate degrees, people had usually studied their undergraduate subject for four years at school before beginning college, which then built on top of this foundation.

Now there is seldom any requirement for school study, so (like the US system) most people’s college degree is taught from scratch, from the groud up, during the three years of the English system.

So, the English have gone in a single generation from having about the highest standard to undergraduate degree (7 years of focused study) to probably the lowest standard (3 years) — and being rewarded with much higher grades, and these degrees requiring very little attendance and study (the lowest in Europe according to an authoritative survey).

It is hard to exaggerate how bad the English system has become, but of course — since college education stopped being vocational — it is hardly noticeable. When college is, for most people, a waste of time, then it doesn’t really matter much how they waste their time, whether in sleeping, chatting and partying (as now) or in studying (as in the past)…